Charlie Gasparino and former FBI special agent Mark Rossini break down the details of the most lucrative insider-trading case in U.S. history.

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Bloomberg

A former portfolio manager for Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors was charged with what U.S. prosecutors called a record-setting insider-trading scheme that netted as much as $276 million for the hedge fund.

Mathew Martoma, 38, traded on inside tips about clinical trials of bapineuzumab, a drug intended to treat Alzheimer’s disease, prosecutors in the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a criminal complaint unsealed today. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Martoma, his former hedge fund and the doctor who allegedly passed him the tips.

Martoma allegedly advised Cohen to sell shares of Wyeth LLC (PFE) and Elan Corp., the companies that were developing the drug, before bad news about its performance was announced. Cohen’s firm sold its Elan and Wyeth holdings to avoid losses and profited from short positions in the stocks, prosecutors said.

“Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefitted from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time,” Bharara said at a press conference today. “This is certainly the most lucrative insider-trading scheme ever charged.”

As the government closes in on Cohen and SAC, here's a look at the string of former employees that the government uncovered, drawing investigators closer to Cohen.

Choo Beng Lee: Lee was a former SAC analyst who pled guilty to two counts of insider trading. His cooperation agreement implies that he acted improperly while employed by SAC, even though the crimes that brought him down took place after he'd left the firm. Lee tried to get rehired by Cohen while he was working with prosecutors as part of the government's investigation.

Noah Freeman: Freeman is a former SAC analyst who became a cooperating witness for the government after being accused of insider trading while at Cohen's firm. His work helped to ensnare his friend and fellow SAC alum Donald Longueil.

Donald Longueil: Longueil was an analyst at SAC subsidiary CR Intrinsic (the same unit where Maroma worked). He pled guilty to insider trading while at Cohen's firm after telling his friend Noah Freeman that he'd destroyed his computer's hard drive and spread the pieces among several dumpsters throughout Manhattan.

Jon Horvath: Horvath worked as a tech analyst at SAC subsidiary Sigma Capital Management. He was arrested along with Anthony Chiasson, a fellow SAC alum and founder of Level Global. Horvath pled guilty to insider trading. He's now cooperating with the government.

Michael Steinberg: Steinberg was Jon Horvath's superviser at Sigma Capital. He's still employed at SAC, but was recently put on leave. Steinberg is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the insider trading scheme that involved Horvath.

Jonathan Hollander: Hollander also worked at CR Intrinsic. He settled with the government after being accused of using inside information to trade stocks in his personal account, rather than for SAC.

Anthony Chiasson: Chiasson is an ex-SAC trader who is currently on trial for insider trading at the firm he co-founded in 2003, Level Global. As part of his defense, Chiasson's lawyers are trying to show that fellow SAC alum and Level Global co-founder David Ganek made trades that were similar to those made by Chiasson.

Cohen, long rumored to be a target of Bharara’s wide-ranging criminal probe into insider-trading by hedge funds, was referenced multiple times — as “Hedge Fund Owner” — in the 21-page complaint because he participated in the trade.

I wanted to change everything and have it all be better. I was sitting in the waiting area of Stevie Cohen’s office (the biggest hedge fund billionaire out there) and I knew that within a few minutes my life would change.

Guys, what do you think the PR angle on this is? Stamford isn't Wall St. exactly, but most Americans don't know the difference. Or is this about prosecutors making a name for themselves -- not, mind you, by going after the fraud that actually caused the crisis in the first place, but by nailing a big-name fund manager?

"The biggest insider case ever, an alleged $276 million fraud that has led prosecutors to the inner-circle of SAC Capital Advisors LP’s Steven Cohen, stemmed in part from a referral from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, WALL STREET’s SELF-REGULATOR."

Another Irishman involved in another scam. Ho hum. I guess he will have to pay a million dollar fine and be back to work on Monday morning. Those damn Irishmen!

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Look dude. We all know what you are trying to say. Yes, Cohen is jewish. But what about the last 2 big-time insider trading arrests -- raj and raj. Big Raj got 10 years and little Raj got 2 years. Neither is jewish.

Guys, what do you think the PR angle on this is? Stamford isn't Wall St. exactly, but most Americans don't know the difference. Or is this about prosecutors making a name for themselves -- not, mind you, by going after the fraud that actually caused the crisis in the first place, but by nailing a big-name fund manager?

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Pitch

I'm not sure on the pr angle. The only thing Preet works on are insider-trading cases. Housing bubble fraud and the ilk are not on his radar it seems.

Good link from Bloomberg. I remember reading at Dealbreaker in 2008 about the Feds going after Stevie Cohen. They have been trying to get him for 4 years and they are finally getting closer to their ultimate prize. I'm not 100% on this, and I don't have time to search it out, but I think that his ex-wife spilled the beans and got the investigation started. She wanted an extra $50 million in the divorce and when he wouldn't give it to her, she went to authorities. I also remember some strange lawsuits at SAC around this time. One dude said Cohen made certain traders come to work wearing women's clothes, day after day, weird shit like that.

An arrest and conviction of Stevie Cohen would be a really, really big deal. Busting Ken Griffith at Citadel in Chicago would be the only thing bigger than bringing down Stevie.

Peter Donald, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office brought the charges, declined to comment on the origins of the case. John Nester, a spokesman for the SEC, declined to comment on the referral. The SEC sued Martoma and his firm, and while needing the same type of proof of knowledge as prosecutors do, the agency has an easier standard of proof than in a criminal case.

To see how fucked up the Department of Justice is on the topic of, well, justice, take a gander at the very first sentence of what the DOJ intends to be a self-congratulatory announcement today:

"A former executive of Lender Processing Services Inc... pleaded guilty today, admitting her participation in a six-year scheme to prepare and file more than 1 million fraudulently signed and notarized mortgage-related documents with property recorders’ offices throughout the United States."

Got that, you serfs? In response to ONE MILLION counts of FRAUD ON THE COURT, a crime so severe that it has no statute of limitations attached to it, our Department of Justice is proud to announce that it is taking action against one (1) person, who "now faces the prospect of prison time.”

To recap: steal a pack of cigarettes or a half pint of Dmitri Vodka on your own account, you go to prison. But commit ONE MILLION capital-crime-level felonies so about 100,000 people have their homes stolen from them on account of a bankrupt financial institution, and you MIGHT go to prison.

Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer are the most disgusting cowards in the U.S.

Was it: a) the day two of his employees put the firm’s name in headlines next to ‘women’s underwear’ and ‘estrogen pills’ b) the day his ex-wife broke out of the psych ward c) the day he had to put his traders in a time out or d) none of the above?

On another note: in all seriousness, reading through all this, I actually feel bad for SAC and Steve. This does not come off as workplace sexual harassment but rather a workplace affair between two aberrant fetishists, playing out their S&M/water-sports fantasies, which, unfortunately for SAC, took place at the office. As someone pointed out early, nobody pisses in your mouth without your complicity.

Not too long ago, Patricia Cohen, the ex-wife of Steve, had a dream. It wasn’t just that she wanted to successfully sue her former husband, who she’d accused of insider trading, hiding marital assets, and so on and so forth and it wasn’t just about money. “No,” Patty said to herself, “dream bigger.” And so she did. She dreamed of what many want but few have the cojones or ovaries to ask for: SAC Capital. A “substantial if not controlling stake.” Her own desk on the floor.

Good clip but he ruins it by asking about Bilderberg. It makes the movement look stupid. There is nothing to be gained from this line of questioning. Bilderberg is no different from Davos, CFR, Bohemian Grove, Jackson Hole Fed meetings,any meeting of political and business leaders.

Bilderberg conspiracies have become a handicap for the Liberty Movement

Bob from WeAreChange talks to Jack Hunter, The Southern Avenger, about an article he wrote in the Charleston City Paper entitled: "Bilderberg conspiracies have become a handicap for the Liberty Movement."

Ultimately, yes. If a false affidavit is filed with the court, it's a direct fraud on the court. If it's filed with a recorder's office, it's still a fraud on the court, albeit indirect, because it's being used to prop up another document or affidavit that is filed with the court. The latter could happen, for example, where a complaint or another affidavit states that "all of necessary documents in connection with the mortgage and deed have been properly filed with the relevant authorities," or some such statement.

All of the robo-signed documents, regardless of where they are filed, serve one and only one purpose: to induce a court to dispossess a homeowner.

The statement by Lanny Breuer the coward about false documents filed with recorder's offices and title insurers is merely an attempt by the Department of Justice to misrepresent and trivialize the massive crime wave that's at work here, namely, systematic FRAUD ON THE COURT. If Breuer were honest, that's the language he would use. But Breuer is a tool of the banks and a liar.

At the risk of having this (second) responsive comment appear before the first one, I should add the following:

The irony of Lanny Breuer pointing out that false affidavits were filed in county recorder's offices across the nation is beyond rich, since the entire Frankenstein at work here, MERS, is the creation of Breuer's own law firm, Covington & Burling, specifically to avoid the requirement of county recorder filings (and the attendant filing fees).

This "problem"--if one can call the systematic undermining of 800 years of property laws by a single white shoe law firm a "problem"--is so pervasive and so widespread that it casts doubt on the real ownership of an enormous percentage of U.S. residences. If either the press or the judiciary were either awake, competent, or non-corrupt, MERS would occasion a wave of litigation that would dwarf the sum total of all product liability lawsuits and class actions put together. And 10's of 1000's of white collar criminals would go to prison.

It's enough to make you wonder whether the infestation of the DOJ by Covington & Burlington partners was by design. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see who replaces Eric Holder.

Goldman Sachs bought Litton Loan Servicing in 2007 and sold it in 2011 after promising the regulators not to "robo-sign" any more fraudulent documents.

We can understand why they sold it: Litton serviced $9.7 billion in mortgages and had a delinquency rate of 43% in 2009. Goldman Sachs halted 23,000 foreclosures in order "to sort out affidavits that were signed without a review of the documentation."

Goldman Sachs's actions surrounding Litton lie at the heart of the fraud that Goldman Sachs perpetrated, not only on the homeowners of the US but also on the pensions and savings funds that bought the highly rated CDOs that Goldman Sachs touted.

Federal prosecutors are considering charging hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP as a criminal enterprise through a powerful legal tool used against the Mafia and drug gangs, people familiar with the probe said.It is rare for investment firms to be charged criminally under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO. Such a step would require approval from top Justice Department officials.The potential RICO strategy comes amid an escalating investigation into whether SAC and its billionaire founder, Steven A. Cohen, traded on inside information. It is now crunchtime for the U.S. as it approaches a five-year legal deadline in July on whether to file securities-fraud charges in the probe.Under RICO, prosecutors could file charges in connection with crimes committed over a decade, as long as any act that is part of the alleged enterprise occurred within the past five years. The law also contains stiff forfeiture provisions. Each fraud count could carry up to 20 years in prison.

(Reuters) - Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund has posted strong returns so far this year even as it deals with a criminal indictment charging the $14 billion fund with being a breeding ground for insider trading.

A source familiar with the firm said Cohen's fund was up about 13 percent this year as of last Friday and has had a particularly good September.

The average hedge fund was up about 4 percent on the year through August, a period during which the broad S&P 500 stock market index rose about 15 percent.

U.S. federal prosecutors indicted the billionaire's firm in July, saying SAC fostered a culture where employees flouted the law and were encouraged to tap their personal networks of contacts for inside information about publicly-traded companies.

SAC Capital and prosecutors have since opened preliminary settlement talks in an attempt to resolve the criminal indictment, said two sources familiar with the matter.

SAC Capital had no immediate comment.

The plea discussions between prosecutors and SAC Capital are preliminary, according to a source familiar with the matter, and are part of the normal course in such cases. The two sides are not close to a deal, the person said, adding that even though the sides are talking, it does not mean a deal will be reached.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley has thrown a chit in the direction of Steven Cohen’s former wife, Patricia, agreeing to allow her to file an amended complaint. The case against her former husband, the founder of hedge fund SAC Capital, was first filed in 2009 and described SAC as “the product of an ongoing racketeering scheme” that engaged in insider trading, money laundering, and bank fraud. The case was dismissed in 2011 on the basis that Patricia had waited too long to make her claims, but it was reinstated by an appeals court in April at the height of negative headlines swirling around Cohen and his hedge fund...

...Close watchers of the case may have noticed a new name that appears on the brief: G. Robert Blakey is listed as “of counsel.” Blakey, a professor emeritus at Notre Dame Law School, is a prominent expert on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO, which Patricia Cohen invokes in her case against her husband.

Blakey helped draft the RICO legislation that became law in 1970. The law was originally aimed at the mafia but has since been applied to various forms of organized crime. His involvement in the case presents an intriguing new twist in the narrative.